


Those Are My Rangers

by fmo



Category: Pacific Rim (2013)
Genre: Descriptions of Jaeger Battles, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-26
Updated: 2013-08-26
Packaged: 2017-12-24 17:05:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,412
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/942411
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fmo/pseuds/fmo
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Inspired by Pentecost's response when the PPDC tells him that they're losing Jaegers faster than they can build them: "I am aware. Those are my Rangers that die every time a Jaeger falls."</p><p>As the years pass, Stacker Pentecost remains a fixed point for his Rangers. He guides them through their battles . . . and then, inevitably, he sees them fall. But when Mako's first Jaeger battle sees her facing two kaiju who have already defeated three other Jaegers, Pentecost must reconcile his feelings as a father with his responsibilities as a Marshall.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Those Are My Rangers

Ten years come and go, and Stacker remains. Because he has to.

 

It starts with the days of Coyote Tango. Stacker and his co-pilot are both young and the miracle grows fast: an impossible idea blossoming into blueprints, then transforming into steel right before their eyes. In the days of the Mark Is, nobody knows if the Jaegers are the saviors of the world or just a desperate prayer. But Stacker and Tamsin race toward the loading docks as the alarms sound. They run toward the kaiju.

 

Then, just as quickly, Tamsin falls by his side; in just a short while, she’s gone. Stacker thinks he’s going to follow her. But he doesn’t. He keeps going, and then it’s his task to watch all the other young pilots run just like he did.

 

Each time is different, but it’s really the same day, repeating. The Shatterdome is usually steel, large, echoing, with a faint film of grease from the machinery over everything. The Jaeger is beloved, iconic. There are leather jackets emblazoned with its symbol, there is graffiti in the city that chants its name. Its pilots don’t think too much about the future, because they can’t afford to.

 

The alarms sound. Stacker is always there at his post, speaking into the microphone. The voice of the Shatterdome. People say he _is_ the Jaeger Program.

 

“Prepare for neural handshake.”

 

He’s seen squabbling pilot pairs, swaggering siblings, and couples stupidly in love. But all of them are Rangers, so they pull it together for the Drift.

 

Someone, usually Choi, reads out the data. Kaiju, Category One. Category Two. Category Three. They give the kaiju a name to make it seem less terrifying.

 

The Jaeger goes out and, behind steel walls in the Shatterdome, Stacker directs his Rangers. His orders are calm and firm and absolute, because they have to be. In command there is not a breath’s space for hesitation. He can’t say that there are two options, both of which are viable. He must tell them that there is one way, and that is the right way that will keep them safe.

 

The pattern sometimes changes a little. Sometimes there are several Jaegers in play—he has reinforcements to send out if his first Jaeger is losing. But, ultimately, either his Rangers come back. Or they don’t.

 

Either there is shouting and running and hugging in the hallways, and then drinking or singing or dancing or people just wrapped around each other joyfully, carelessly—

 

—Or there is silence. All the technicians who’ve spent each day of work sweating to build and mend the Jaeger now know that that time is over. The creature they’ve given life to is gone. The leather jackets will be put away, the graffiti will be painted over for kindness’ sake. And there will a Jaeger hull fallen somewhere like a lost child, sitting with helpless arms or fallen forward on its face. And Stacker will have to order helicopters to heave it upwards and fly it away, dangling there.

 

And then a new Jaeger comes, and it begins again. Because Stacker is a fixed point: he has to be. Jaegers come and go, but Marshall Pentecost remains. He is certainty, because the pilots must begin from certainty if they are to fight chaos.

 

This pattern has only really broken once, and it is like this: Tamsin collapses in the Conn-Pod, although the Drift connections keep her body partly upright. Somehow, Stacker forces himself to take on her hemisphere too and go on alone. His neurons scream, but he defeats the kaiju. Then there’s a feeling of strange ecstasy—he has survived. He’s won. The dopamine response is kicking in to offset all that pain. Tamsin’s eyes open again and she’s so glad, so relieved for him.

 

Stacker wants to feel the fresh air on his face, wants to see the kaiju and the city they’ve saved. So he opens the hatch and looks out.

 

There’s a little girl there holding a red shoe. Just one shoe on her foot—the other foot’s dirty. But she’s smiling. There are tears on her face, but she’s not hurt.

 

Over the years that follow, Mako grows up. She’s still one of his best memories. She’s safe from the pattern: she’s survived, she’s learned. Now she creates beautiful work of her own.

 

She wants to pilot a Jaeger.

 

Stacker goes to Oblivion Bay to find a Jaeger—one of his—and stands there for a moment among a sea of all his Jaegers. He began all of their stories; he ended all of those stories too. Each pilot who is represented here by a Jaeger tombstone was following his orders. Stacker knows that they were the right orders, that sometimes there are no orders that will help a creations of humans and artifice survive against a monster. But, still. Someone had to give those orders, and he did it.

 

Gipsy Danger is the Jaeger that Stacker chooses to bring back. It has one pilot still alive—another small miracle. A tiny glitch in the pattern.

 

 Someone who could still afford to be sentimental would say that it is fate: as adamant as Stacker remains that Mako won’t pilot Gipsy, the cards fall out so that Mako is the only choice.

 

Her first Drift is disastrous, as Stacker had always known that it would be, but still that moment comes when Stacker must give an order, calm and firm and absolute. As fast as the closing of eyes, fast as the trickle of blood from a nose, Cherno Alpha and Crimson Typhoon are gone. Striker Eureka is disabled and there is only one choice to save Hong Kong, a city of millions.

 

Stacker gives the order. The drive suit armor closes around Mako. She and Becket board the Jaeger. There isn’t time for anything else.

 

“Prepare for neural handshake,” Stacker says.

 

Choi reads out the data. They’ve given the two kaiju names so that they seem less terrifying.

 

These are two pilots, one of them a rookie, who’ve never Drifted together successfully before. Piloting a once-dead Jaeger against two Category IV kaiju.

 

Stacker has never seen a battle like this end with cheering and dancing.

 

The helicopters carry the Jaeger out into the Pacific. The Jaeger is dropped.

 

Over the comms, Stacker hears Becket narrating everything they’re doing, as if Mako isn’t in Becket's mind already. Mako herself hardly says anything at all. Simulations are no preparation at all for a real fight.

 

Gipsy Danger destroys the acid-spewing kaiju. It’s one victory. Then the other kaiju sprouts wings and, fast as lightning, it’s carrying the Jaeger into the sky and beyond the reach of the Shatterdome’s contact.

 

Still, Stacker stays there, poised. His hand is around the microphone even though Mako can’t hear him. He’s listening although there is no more data for Choi to give him.

 

Until the Jaeger is falling. Choi’s talking fast: Gipsy’s sword is deployed and she’s falling toward the earth. 

 

Stacker runs out through the rain. He must be calm, because he is the Shatterdome’s certainty. He is their fixed point. It’s his daughter in this Jaeger, his daughter who has just defeated two kaiju on her first run. But the engagement is not yet over. 

 

So Stacker gives orders: to survive the fall, purge the nuclear reactor. Aim for the artificial turf. This is the only way that will keep you safe.

 

Finally, the Jaeger lands and shatters the ground around it. It’s shrouded in dust from the impact. Through the binoculars, Stacker looks toward the stadium for any sign that the Jaeger is still moving.  Choi and Gottlieb and the others are there, too, looking out.

 

The, slowly, Gipsy Danger raises its head and then stands. Someone from the control room comes out running and says that Jaeger data reads both pilots as unharmed.

 

While everyone else hurries inside to prepare the helicopters to retrieve Gipsy, Stacker remains on the deck for one minute or two.

 

As on that day in Tokyo long ago, Mako has emerged again, brave and still standing,  from disaster and dust and rubble. If Stacker could afford to be superstitious, he’d hope that this resurrected Jaeger and its second-chance co-pilot can keep Mako the miracle she is. Because Stacker can stay a fixed point as long as Mako is not fixed in place, but growing, and thriving, and living. 

 

Then Stacker turns to go back inside. A crowd is waiting.

**Author's Note:**

> Also inspired by a Pacific Rim fan video on YouTube to a song called "Sound the Bells." It focuses on the Stacker and Mako relationship. You should look for it if you want to cry copiously.
> 
> If you liked this fic, please leave a comment! I love to read comments and I try to reply to as many as possible.


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